ly teaches that all are not the children of God, because the Jews and many others hate him, do not the works of God, do not righteousness, and do not love their brother. We ask the reader to pass a candid judgment, which is right and worthy to be believed.

It may be said, by the advocates of Universalism, that they acknowledge all are not yet the children of God, but that they will finally become so, and therefore be ultimately saved and enjoy heaven. We reply, that this admission destroys all the necessary connection between the relation, that God is the Father of all, because he created them in his own image, and the final holiness and happiness of the human race; for the very obvious reason, that if some are not the children of God now, there is no absolute necessity in the relation to make all the children of God, and if it fails from inadequacy or imbecility to any, it may to all; and if it fails now, it may hereafter, and to all eternity.

Now, we think we have sufficiently shown the absurdity of the position, and have demolished every fortification of the argument drawn from the paternity of God to prove the ultimate holiness and salvation of our race. At any rate we submit the subject to the judgment of the reader.

WHAT WILL BECOME OF IDIOTS AND INFANTS?

As we have shown, that in order to be entitled to holiness and its legitimate peace here or hereafter, it is requisite to believe in Christ, be saved by grace, and be adopted into the family of God; it will be proper to indulge in some remarks relative to the ultimate state of idiots and infants, as this is considered a difficulty irreconcilable, by our opponents, with our views of the plan of salvation. We believe that all such will be saved and be clothed upon from heaven, a place suitable to the development and enlarge

ment of the powers of mind; and our reasons for the faith we entertain, are simply the following:

1. It is an unalterable law of God incorporated in his divine government, that accountability is only commensurate with human ability. The Most High claims nothing more than what man is competent to do; and as idiots and infants are disqualified, by mental imbecility and necessary ignorance, to exercise repentance and faith in Christ, the unalterable conditions of the covenant of mercy, therefore God does not require them to repent and believe. Should he make this demand, it would be unjust and manifestly contravene one of the leading principles of his government. After all, how can they reach heaven? The duty of repentance and faith as conditions of the gospel covenant, are requisite to secure grace to save from sin, and ultimately to gain glory and God; but idiots and children have no sin, for sin is a voluntary breach of the law, and where no law is, there can be no sin, and as God has not imposed upon them his law, because their ability is not commensurate to an observance of the law; therefore they are entitled to heaven, and there is no difficulty in the way-sin, which is the only insurmountable obstacle to God's accountable creatures, has never been committed by them.

2. The gospel covenant with its conditions is addressed to rational and accountable creatures only, and as idiots and infants belong not to this class, therefore it is not addressed to them.

3. The gospel is proclaimed to accountable beings, while in their sins and morally unfit for heaven, in order to renew and sanctify their souls for glory; idiots and infants are free from sin and are fit for heaven, therefore the gospel is not published to them in the same sense, that it is to others. Infants are emphatically declared proper subjects for heaven by the great Teacher. "Verily I say unto you,

except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of God." Matt. xviii. 3. Little children are fit for the kingdom of God, therefore accountable beings must be converted and become as children-attain this same position and relation to God, before they can be saved. Therefore we conclude that children and idiots are saved, or brought to God by Christ necessarily, in view of what he has done for the world, and in view of their relation to the kingdom of God.

The multitude of children who die in their infancy, and all idiots, together with all those who have believed in Christ in such a sense as to receive the adoption of sons, shall constitute the family of heaven, bask forever in the sunbeams of immaculate glory, and sing the new song, in every note ascribing all praise and power unto the lamb who was slain to redeem them from the earth. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Rev. xxi. 4. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone : which is the second death." Rev. xxi. 8. These shall drink the cup of fury, because they loved the wages of sin, worked unrighteousness, disbelieved the record God gave of his Son, trusted in the arm of flesh, filled up the measure of their iniquities, and rejected the spirit, grace, and adoption of sons. Who can behold the contrast, and not sue for mercy, and pray with the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner?" Reader, go to Christ and comply with the holy requisition, "My son, give me thy heart."

CHAPTER II.

HUMAN DEPRAVITY.

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee." Psalm l. 21.

WHEN men become profligate either in sentiment or in practice, they change the true character of Jehovah into a god of imagination suitable and corresponding with their corrupt cogitations. They either make unto themselves idols of wood or sculptured stone, and pay their homage unto them; or else the god they delight to serve has a nature like theirs, approving lewdness and wickedness. This was the case with those who lived in the days of the Psalmist. They hated instruction, and deprecated God; they gave their countenance to theft and robbery, and were accomplices of adulterers; they devoted their speech to evil and their tongue to framing deceitful things; they maligned their kindred and slandered their own mother's son; yet they imagined that all these things were consonant with the will of God. They thought that God loved whatever they delighted in. To imagine ourselves as good comparatively as God, and that He made us what we are, is invariably the down-hill road to delusion and error.

That Universalism should mangle and make awful inroads upon the scripture-sanctioned doctrine of human depravity, is what might be naturally expected from the broad position, that all men must necessarily be finally holy and happy. Whatever doctrines stand in bold opposition to

their idolized tenet, must either be tortured and wrested from their true import, or else be entirely exploded. Therefore the Bible-taught doctrine of human depravity has not escaped the pruning knife of those innovators, for they teach the world openly, that innate depravity is a figment of scholastic divines and not of the Bible. Universalists believe

That all men are born as free from depravity now, as Adam was when he came from the hands of his Creator. Mr. Ballou, the father of Universalism as it now is, treats the account of the garden of Eden, man's temptation and subsequent fall, as so perfectly fabulous or figurative as of little or no consequence. And as there is no direct evidence, except the Bible, that there was a literal garden, a literal tree of life, and a literal tree of knowledge of good and evil, he repudiates the common exposition of this scripture altogether. His language is "Should it be said, that this garden was a literal garden, that the tree of life was a literal tree, and that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was also literal; I should be glad to be informed, what evidence can be adduced in support of such an idea.” In this summary manner, this sapient expounder of God's word explodes the commonly received notions of Paradise and the scenes that transpired in it.

Another preacher of Universalism, rejects the literal garden of Paradise, and the tree of life, &c., because there is no proof of its present existence, or even the place where it once should have been. Therefore, he says, the garden is humanity; the tree of life is the good principle in man; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the evil principle in man; the sword to guard the tree of life is the law of God. This is profound wisdom, and doubtless, God must pour out his Spirit on such without measure! Here we have the doctrine; a denial of native depravity, and